Fiscal Effects from Privatization: Case of Bulgaria and Poland (Part I)

This study constitutes part of the "Support for Economic Reforms in Bulgaria" project conducted by the Center for Economic and Social Research (CASE Research Foundation), Warsaw and financed by the Open Society Institute, Budapest. The aim of the project is to assist co-operation with Bulgarian counterparts in implementing structural reforms in the Bulgarian economy. At the request of the Bulgarian authorities, this assistance involves developing and carrying out reform programs, as well as evaluating their results in priority areas of structural and institutional reform, with particular reference to the process of ownership transformation. This includes providing an overall strategy for privatization and reporting its effects, monitoring the process of enterprise privatization, post-privatization contract enforcement and the restructuring of newly privatized companies. The purpose of this study is to: - describe and evaluate the fiscal dimension of the privatization process in Bulgaria and Poland, - conduct a cross-country comparison of the fiscal effects of privatization in Bulgaria and Poland, examining their respective approaches to the same, - identify the crucial factors in the privatization strategy and policies of both countries that affect their privatization revenues, - provide background information for the possible transfer of know-how concerning the best approach to maximizing the fiscal effects of privatization, by examining those positive and negative aspects of Poland's experience that could prove relevant to Bulgaria's economic environment. This study includes an evaluation of the fiscal effects of privatization in both countries in the period since the very beginning of the process, i.e. in the case of Poland since 1990 and in the case of Bulgaria since 1993. The crosscountry comparison of the fiscal dimension of privatization has been contingent on the privatization models, priorities and methods applied in both countries.